Earthscan Risk in Society

The Earthscan Risk in Society series publishes high quality research, teaching, practical and policy- related books on topics that address risk analysis, risk assessment, risk perception, risk management, uncertainty and decision-making in society. Professor Ragnar Lofstedt is the series editor and the series has published highly influential authors in the field of risk, including Ortwin Renn, Baruch Fischhoff and Paul Slovic.

From Hazards and Vulnerability to Prevention and Resilience

The baby boom generation were born between 1946 and 1964 and are the largest population cohort in US history. They should number about 90 million by mid-century, more than doubling their current size. The massive increase in seniors and relative decline of those of working age in the US is mirrored…

Protecting health and the environment

Risk analysis is not a narrowly defined set of applications. Rather, it is widely used to assess and manage a plethora of hazards that threaten dire implications. However, too few people actually understand what risk analysis can help us accomplish and, even among experts, knowledge is often…

Risk, Power and Identity in Land Use Planning

From dams to landfill sites, and power plants to radioactive waste repositories, the siting of facilities is a veritable minefield of conflicts involving industry, planners, authorities, NGOs and citizens. This penetrating volume examines risk, power and identity in contests over the siting of…

How Geography Shapes the Emergence of Riskscapes

Through its exploration of the spatial dimension of risk, this book offers a brand new approach to theorizing risk, and significant improvements in how to manage, tolerate and take risks. A broad range of risks are examined, including natural hazards, climate change, political violence, and…

Drawing on theory from anthropology, sociology, organisation studies and philosophy, this book addresses how the perception, communication and management of risk is shaped by culturally informed and socially embedded knowledge and experience. It provides an account of how interpretations of risk in…

'A comprehensive and important collection that includes essays by some of the leading figures in the field. ...Essential reading for anyone interested in risk assessment.'
Professor Kristin Shrader-Frechette, University of Notre Dame
'The editors are to be congratulated for bringing together a…

Uncertainty and Scepticism in the Public Mind

Trust is an important factor in risk management, affecting judgements of risk and benefit, technology acceptance and other forms of cooperation. In this book the world?s leading risk researchers explore all aspects of trust as it relates to risk management and communication. Drawing on a wide…

Governing environmental risk, particularly large-scale transboundary risks associated with climate change and pollution, is one of the most pressing problems facing society .
This book focuses on a set of key questions relating to environmental regulation: How are activities regulated in a…

There are two questions often asked of risk communication: what has been learned from past work, and what is needed to push the field forward? Drawing on the experience of leading risk researchers and practitioners, Effective Risk Communication focuses on answering these questions. The book draws…

The articles collected here are foundational contributions to integrating behavioural research and risk analysis. They include seminal articles on three essential challenges. One is ensuring effective two-way communication between technical experts and the lay public, so that risk analyses address…

Improving Decision Making

This book aims to encourage a more reflective, multidisciplinary approach to public safety, and the 'reenfranchisement' of those affected by this new phenomenon. Over the past decade health and safety has become a major issue of public interest. There are countless stories of health and safety…

Developing Policy-Oriented Scenarios

Assessing the future is vital in informing public policy decisions. One of the most widespread approaches is the development of scenarios, which are alternative hypothetical futures. Research has indicated, however, that the reality of how professionals go about employing scenarios is often starkly…

New Perspectives on Risk Perception

The Feeling of Risk brings together the work of Paul Slovic, one of the world's leading analysts of risk, to describe the extension of risk perception research into the first decade of this new century.
In this collection of important works, Paul Slovic explores the conception of 'risk as…

Uncertainty and Scepticism in the Public Mind

Trust is an important factor in risk management, affecting judgements of risk and benefit, technology acceptance and other forms of cooperation. In this book the world's leading risk researchers explore all aspects of trust as it relates to risk management and communication. The authors draw on a…

Multidisciplinary Perspectives

�This is a major, and deeply thoughtful, contribution to understanding uncertainty and risk. Our world and its unprecedented challenges need such ways of thinking! Much more than a set of contributions from different disciplines, this book leads you to explore your own way of perceiving your own…

A New Framework for Risk Management

There is an increasing dissatisfaction about how risk is regulated, leading to vivid debates about the use of 'risk assessment' and 'precaution'. As a result, academics, government officials and industry leaders are calling for new approaches and fresh ideas. This book provides a historical and…

�A thought-provoking and invaluable book for anyone who cares about risk communication and management in the 21st century�
Anna Jung, Director General, European Food Information Council
�Professor Ragnar L�fstedt has once again produced a most interesting book on risk management and trust,…

Calculating Political Risk is rich and illuminating, and much more than a political science treatise. Althaus draws on diverse literature, extensive interviews and intriguing case studies to offer interdisciplinary, practical and nuanced insight. This book provides new perspectives and more precise…

Coping with Uncertainty in a Complex World

'Risk Governance is a tour de force. Every risk manager, every risk analyst, every risk researcher must read this book - it is the demarcation point for all further advances in risk policy and risk research. Renn provides authoritative guidance on how to manage risks based on a definitive synthesis…

From Hurricane Katrina and the south Asian tsunami to human-induced atrocities, terrorist attacks and the looming effects of climate change, the world is assailed by both natural and unnatural hazards and disasters. These expose not only human vulnerability - particularly that of the poorest, who…

Two volume Set

We live in a 'risk society' where the identification, distribution and management of risks, from new technology, environmental factors or other sources are crucial to our individual and social existence. In The Social Contours of Risk, Volumes 1 and 2, two of the world's leading and most…

Volume I: Publics, Risk Communication and the Social

We live in a 'risk society' where the identification, distribution and management of risks, from new technology, environmental factors or other sources are crucial to our individual and social existence. In The Social Contours of Risk, Volumes I and II, two of the world's leading and most…

Despite international initiatives such as the Earth Summit in 1992 and ongoing efforts to implement the Kyoto Protocol, human activities continue to register a destructive toll on the planetary environment. At root, research on global environmental risk seeks new pathways for reversing…

Environmental hazards do not respect international boundaries. In this volume, distinguished international researchers make a significant contribution to the understanding and management of transboundary environmental risks.
The transboundary risk topics addressed highlight the key political,…

From Urban Sanitation to Sustainable Cities

Local environments such as cities and neighbourhoods are becoming a focal point for those concerned with environmental justice and sustainability. The Citizens at Risk takes up this emerging agenda and analyses the key issues in a refreshingly simple yet sophisticated style.
Taking a comparative…

Understanding Public Challenges to Modern Science and Technology

The benefits of modern technology often involve health, safety and environmental risks that produce public suspicion of technologies and aversion to certain products and substances. Amplified by the pervasive power of the media, public concern about health and ecological risks can have enormous…

Risk as we now know it is a wholly new phenomenon, the by-product of our ever more complex and powerful technologies. In business, policy making, and in everyday life, it demands a new way of looking at technological and environmental uncertainty.
In this definitive volume, four of the world's…

The concept of risk is an outgrowth of our society's great concern about coping with the dangers of modern life. The Perception of Risk brings together the work of Paul Slovic, one of the world's leading analysts of risk, risk perception and risk management, to examine the gap between expert views…

Social trust is a crucial issue to many aspects of modern society. Policy makers continually aspire to winning it and corporations frequently run the risk of losing it. The 'trust deficit' raises vital questions and problems to which until recently there have been few answers or solutions.
Experts…